1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a new and improved device for cracking nuts and more particularly, to a nutcracker which operates to crack nuts without scattering hulls or shells. The nutcracker of this invention may be operated without the necessity of being clamped or otherwise secured to a bench or tablet and, it is portable, light in weight, and is capable of simultaneously carrying both a supply of nuts to be cracked and a quantity of cracked nuts. The nutcracker is simple and easy to operate and prevents the scattering of hulls and shells during the cracking operation by containing the nuts in an enclosed cracking chamber, which enhances the utility of the device indoors. The nutcracker can be used to crack substantially any nut which will fit inside the cracking chamber, and may be designed and adjusted to accommodate the cracking of nuts of varying size and description.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, various devices have been developed to crack nuts, most of which are equipped with a cracking mechanism consisting of cracking jaws and at least one cracking lever. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,713,468 to Carol H. Walsh discloses a nutcracker having a hollow guide cylinder containing a piston which reciprocates inside the cylinder with respect to an adjustable jaw to facilitate cracking of a nut placed between the piston and the jaw. The nutcracker is lever-operated, the lever being attached to the piston in order to apply pressure on the nut to be cracked. Furthermore, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,804,111 to P. C. Burchett, a manually operated nutcracker designed essentially in the shape of a pair of pliers is disclosed, with a nutcracking chamber and a pair of jaws cooperating with a pair of levers to facilitate the necessary cracking pressure.
Conventional nutcracking devices are characterized by many undesirable features. For example, nutcrackers of the piston design generally require some external stabilizing means since operation of the lever with sufficient power to crack nuts requires that the frame be clamped or otherwise firmly mounted to a strong support. Another disadvantage inherent in nutcrackers of this design is the problem of excessively cracking the nut since no means is provided for preventing the travel of the piston toward the jaw even after the nut is sufficiently cracked. Accordingly, if the shell happens to be quite hard and sufficient force is applied to crack it, this force frequently results in excessively crushing the meat in the nut.
Hand nutcrackers are frequently subject to the limitation of requiring considerable pressure on the handgrip members to achieve sufficient power to crack the nut. Accordingly, nuts having thick shells such as walnuts and hickory nuts would be very difficult if not impossible to crack utilizing such devices because of the limited amount of leverage which can be realized by squeezing the handgrips together to achieve cracking. Furthermore, removal of nuts from the cracking chamber would appear to be somewhat cumbersome where positioning springs located inside the cracking chamber are used, since the springs tend to force the nut in an upward position against the upper cracking member, thereby making removal of the cracked nut difficult.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved nutcracker which is portable, does not require mounting or clamping to be used, and is equipped with a built-in tray to store both uncracked and cracked nuts both during the cracking operation and when the nutcracker is not in use.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved nutcracker having an enclosed cracking chamber which operates to prevent the scattering of hulls and shells during the cracking operation, thus enabling the nutcracker to be used inside the home, in an automobile or elsewhere under circumstances where the scattering of shells would be undesirable.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a new and improved nutcracker which is equipped with an adjustable cracking lever and a rear base member which permits the cracking operation to be achieved by a sharp blow to the cracking lever rather than by an unregulated pull or jerk as in many conventional nutcracking devices.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved device for cracking substantially any nut, which is adjustable to accommodate nuts of varying sizes and shapes and to achieve a clean cracking of the nut shell or hull to enable the meat to be removed in large pieces with a minimum of crushing.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved nutcracker which is functional and yet pleasing in appearance, and which therefore functions as a decorative item either alone or with a supply of nuts, as well as operating efficiently to crack nuts.